It's About Time!

On April 25^th, the New York Times’ Emmarie Huetteman and Ashley Parker authored an article titled, House Panel Set to Offer Several Immigration Bills. The story reports that the “House Judiciary Committee announced Thursday that it would introduce a series of bills beginning this week to overhaul the nation’s immigration system,” which presents itself at the right time to apply pressure for debate on various parties who are already working closely with this topic. Furthermore, the group believes that “the best way to pass immigration legislation is actually a comprehensive bill, because that can achieve more balance and everybody can get much but not all of what they want.”

This push for a complete revamp for all facets of immigration legislation is something that, in my opinion, has long been overdue. Considering that we are the melting-pot culture of the modern age, the laws that govern immigration in this country and the issues that surround them must be recognized as one of our most pressing topics for discussion. Just as the article provides, there are already 11 million unauthorized immigrants here in the United States, and the House group that has been negotiating this has been doing so for about four years. So I believe it goes without saying that it’s about time to get the wheels spinning on legislation that will acknowledge our current situation and use it to everyone’s advantage as a people and a progressive country.

Let's Make Lemonade!

On March 29^th, Christian Rivera published a blog entry titled, “Should We Make Lemonade?” In his text he conveys that the illegal immigrants are “life’s lemons” and the United States should take this opportunity to “make lemonade,” or in other words further strengthen the nation and its economy, rather than continue to let it hinder.

I couldn’t agree more with Christian. He mentions that “Americans are concerned about legalizing illegal immigrants because they are afraid of them taking over all jobs, [and criminals roaming the streets.]” However, we know very well that these concerns do not hold water. First of all, as illegals, they already have the jobs that would supposedly be taken over because they do not have to be paid minimum wage thereby cutting out any competition. If they were legal citizens, jobs would be awarded to the most qualified. In addition, they would pay taxes on any income they earn; something they are not able to do right now even if they wanted to. Secondly, the small percentage of immigrants who are in fact criminals could be tried in American courts and penalized accordingly. All we are able to do with them right now is deport them back to their respective country and repeat the process when they come back.

We are wasting precious time, money and resources impeding something that could be very beneficial to our nation. So needless to say, let’s make lemonade!